1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to technology to improve the reusability of object data in an image processing apparatus capable of separating objects from an original document image.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, there has been a technology as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-265384, which separates object data from scan data obtained by reading an original document, and applies an editing function to the object data. The technology performs the following processing when separating objects from the scan data:    (1) Divides the scan data on an object by object basis;    (2) Classifies each object data in the scan data to an item having an attribute such as TEXT, GRAPHIC, and IMAGE, for example; and,    (3) Converts the object data with the attribute of TEXT or GRAPHIC to vector data by vectorization, and the object data with the attribute of IMAGE to image data such as JPEG.
The object data separated as described above can be edited using an editing function.
In addition, there is a technology as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-277473, which adds attribute information data (a keyword) chosen by a user to the scan data afterward for improving search ability.